About The Mile Cross Phoenix Children's Project

Based at the former Baptist church on Mile Cross Road, Mile Cross, Norwich.

The campaign for local youth facilities began in Mile Cross in 1985, when a group of local parents who were concerned about the lack of local leisure and social opportunities for young people; made an approach to Norfolk County Council’s Youth and Community Services for a centre in Mile Cross, for the young people of the area. In 1988, local parents achieved their goal with the official opening of the Phoenix Centre on Peterson Road.

Unfortunately in May 1998 severe restrictions in funding led NYCS to make the difficult decision to close almost all of its youth centres across the County. The Phoenix Centre was one of over 30 centres’, which faced closure.

Local parents once again became concerned about the potential lack of local facilities that the closure of the Centre would create and began a campaign to save the Phoenix Centre. A group of local volunteers, calling themselves The Mile Cross Phoenix Children’s Project, was formed, and began to explore the possibility of running the Centre.

A fund-raising campaign began and a formal request was submitted to NYCS for permission to take over the management of the Centre. Negotiations with NYCS went on for over a year until in August 1998 it was agreed that the Phoenix Centre could be handed over to the local community. This happened in March 1999.

The Project became a Registered Charity and in November of the same year, the Project’s trustees became the official lease-holders of the Phoenix Centre.

Since that point, the Project has gone from strength to strength and has developed a wide range of new activities and groups.

In 2006 after almost a nine year campaign, the children’s project moved from the worn out porta cabins on Peterson Road to the former Baptist Church on Mile Cross Road. This was bought and refurbished with £500,000 funding, raised by the volunteers of the children’s project and is now our new Phoenix Centre.

We may have a new centre now but we cannot rest. We have to keep it open and well maintained, so fundraising is one of our big ongoing projects.